GWistooshort

Tho to be fair you did say yesterday that we wouldn't beat Debrecen didn't you

No

Click on the links below for the highlights & the post-match interviews................ Highlights (Sky) [starts at 2:06 in] Also includes highlights of Fiorentina v Lyon Highlights (UEFA) [0:30] Rafa (Sky) [2:49] Rafa (The Guardian) [1:02] Rafa (BBC) [5:17] AUDIO Gerrard (Sky) [1:39] Reina & Debrecen's Coulibaly, Szelesi & Rudolf (UEFA) [1:27] Purslow (Sky) [1:17]

Draw for the first 2 knock out rounds takes place on Fri 18 Dec & the draw for the QF, SF & final takes place on Fri 19 March Country protection is in force for the 1st knock out round, but ends after that

In case people didn't see these in the other thread Click on the links below for clips from the pre-match press conference Rafa (Sky) [1:39] Rafa (BBC) [4:14] AUDIO Carra (Sky) [1:36]

A correction to my previous reply - if Fiorentina & Lyon draw & we beat Debrecen beating Fiorentina by 2 clear goals is enough provided they don't score - if they score it is in effect an away goal (see criteria c in my post above) & then we need to beat them by 3 clear goals

UEFA's regulations (Paragraph 7.06) say that if teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine who goes through: a) higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question; If Fiorentina draw with Lyon & we beat Debrecen & Fiorentina, us & Fiorentina would be level on 3 points each from our two matches between us. b) superior goal difference from the group matches played among the teams in question; A 2-0 win for us means we would be level with Fiorentina with 2 goals each, which is where the score against Debrecen comes into play (see d below). A 3-0 win for us means we would have a superior goal difference to Fiorentina (3-2) from our matches between us & would therefore go through If Fiorentina score at Anfield a 3-1 victory for us wouldn't be enough (we would have scored 3 goals each & they would go through on the away goal - see c below) therefore if they score we need to beat them by 3 clear goals. c) higher number of goals scored away from home in the group matches played among the teams in question; d) superior goal difference from all group matches played; If we beat Fiorentina 2-0 we would need to have beaten Debrecen by 4 clear goals to have a superior overall goal difference to Fiorentina & therefore go through. e) higher number of goals scored; This would come into play if Fiorentina draw with Lyon & lose to us 2-0 & we beat Debrecen by 3 clear goals. At the moment Fiorentina have scored 11 goals while we have only scored 3 so it would take some pretty unlikely scores for us to go thorugh on this criteria (0-0 Fiorentina Lyon & us beating Debrecen 7-6). f) higher number of coefficient points accumulated by the club in question, as well as its association, over the previous five seasons

Click on the links below for clips from the pre-match press conference Rafa (Sky) [1:39] Rafa (BBC) [4:14] AUDIO Carra (Sky) [1:36]

I'd go Masch instead of Lucas - think we'd need his tidying up if we play both Gerrard & Aquilani in centre-mid & he's also likely to give the defence more confidence than Lucas who has a habit of giving away free-kicks on the edge of the area Benayoun has said he doesn't think he can play for the full 90 mins so he may not start

If Fiorentina draw with Lyon & we beat them by 2 clear goals we have to have beaten Debrecen by 4 clear goals to go through because 2nd place in the group will be decided on overall goal difference If Fiorentina draw with Lyon & we beat Debrecen by less than 4 clear goals we have to beat Fiorentina by 3 clear goals to go through because 2nd place will be decided on goal difference from our matches against Fiorentina If Fiorentina lose to Lyon we 'just' have to beat Debrecen & Fiorentina (regardless of the scores) to go through as we will have 1 more point than Fiorentina If Fiorentina beat Lyon or we fail to beat Debrecen then we can't go through More details HERE

Yes currently Fiorentina have 9 points & we have 4 points so we would be 1 point ahead of them

Sounds like Benayoun won't start............. "I can’t see myself playing the full 90 minutes. I don’t believe that is a realistic aim after missing so much training." http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverp...534-25235782/2/

The Guardian Monday 23 November 2009 Fiorentina's poor record against Lyon offers hope to Liverpool Paolo Bandini • Fiorentina without Adrian Mutu and Stevan Jovetic • Lyon can secure top spot with a home win Liverpool's Champions League fate may be out of their hands but that is not to say it has already been decided. Fiorentina would need to beat Lyon at Stadio Artemio Franchi tomorrow night to be sure of reaching the knock-out stage at the Premier League side's expense and, if recent history is anything to go by, that is certainly not a foregone conclusion. After being drawn in the same group last year, Fiorentina and Lyon have faced each other three times in this competition over the past 15 months, and so far the Italians' record reads: drawn one, lost two. When the two sides met in Florence in the fifth game of the group stage last season Fiorentina knew they needed a win to have any hopes of reaching the knock-out stages. They lost 2-1. That was with something approaching a full-strength side, a luxury the Fiorentina manager, Cesare Prandelli, has already acknowledged he will not have at his disposal tomorrow night. The former Chelsea striker Adrian Mutu, who tore the meniscus in his knee earlier this month, was ruled out of this game by his manager on Sunday, as was his most likely replacement, Stevan Jovetic – the scorer of both Fiorentina's goals against Liverpool in September – though the latter has since trained and still hopes to be involved. The centre-back Alessandro Gamberini is also out injured. "We are better than last season, this squad has matured a great deal," said the Fiorentina captain, Dario Dainelli, when reminded of last year's defeat to Lyon. But in the league there has been scant evidence of improvement. After a 3-2 defeat to newly-promoted Parma on Saturday, Fiorentina sit sixth, two points worse off than they were at the corresponding point last term. Many fans are frustrated at the club's failure to reinvest more than a fraction of the €20.5m they received when selling Felipe Melo to Juventus in the summer. A defence that had given up five goals in two Champions League games against Debrecen was opened up far too easily by Parma, and Prandelli will be all too aware that Lyon have scored at least once in every Champions League game they have played since the 2007-08 season. That puts a lot of pressure on Gilardino – sent off in the first leg for what was ruled to be an elbow on Jérémy Toulalan – who is likely to play alone up front in the absence of Mutu and Jovetic. Lyon, however, have injuries of their own to contend with, and are likely to be without midfielders Maxime Gonalons and Toulalan, full-backs Anthony Réveillère and François Clerc and centre-back Mathieu Bodmer. Although they sit third in Ligue 1, Claude Puel's side are also coming off a disappointing result, having conceded a late equaliser to draw 1-1 with a last-placed Grenoble team who had previously claimed one point from 12 games. The French side have already qualified but their captain, Cris, insisted that did not mean they would take their foot off the pedal tomorrow. "The objective was to qualify, now we have the chance to get first place," he said. "It will be hard because Fiorentina want to book their place. We're expecting a very physical match." http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/no...hampions-league

The Times November 24, 2009 Fiorentina raise stakes in the push for qualification Gabriele Marcotti, European Football Correspondent “The biggest game of the season.” That’s how Cesare Prandelli, the Fiorentina coach, described Tuesday night’s clash with Lyons. Indeed, Florentines have taken up the club’s call to decorate windows, balconies and terraces in the Tuscan city with purple and white banners to underscore the importance of the clash with the French giants. Yet whether Lyons will enter the Stadio Artemio Franchi with the same do-or-die spirit remains to be seen. The Ligue 1 club are in the enviable position of having already qualified for the knockout phase of the Champions’ League. Claude Puel, their coach, insists that they will field a full-strength side but, in fact, even a defeat tonight could still see them top the group, provided that they beat Debrecen, who have yet to win a match, on December 9 at the Stade de Gerland. But might the French side be overcome by the temptation of knocking out Liverpool, a European heavyweight, simply by putting in a less-than-stellar performance against Fiorentina? “Don’t worry, we will play our normal game because we want to reach our objective, which is to finish top of the group,” Puel said. “And yes, I’m aware that if we get a good result in Florence it will leave Liverpool with a chance to qualify.” The problem for Puel is that he does not really have a choice about whether or not to field an understrength side, particularly in defence. Both right backs, François Clerc and Anthony Réveillère are sidelined, as is Cleber Anderson, the Brazilian central defender. To make matters worse, Maxime Gonalons, Mathieu Bodmer and Jérémy Toulalan, utility players who have deputised in central defence of late are also out. The job of partnering Cris, the veteran Brazilian defender, will probably fall to Jean-Alain Boumsong, the former Newcastle United player, who returned to action only at the weekend after a three-month injury layoff. Lyons were disappointing at the weekend, drawing 1-1 away to Grenoble, Ligue 1’s bottom club and a team who gained only their second point of the season. They remain joint-second, a point behind Auxerre. “We basically came up short in every department,” Puel said. “I’m counting on the fact that things will be different in the Champions’ League.” The good news for Lyons is that Fiorentina are facing their own injury concerns. Adrian Mutu, the former Chelsea striker, is definitely out after surgery on his knee, while Stevan Jovetic, the 19-year-old who was so impressive against Liverpool, is only just returning from injury. “It’s unthinkable that Jovetic plays from the start, he hasn’t trained in three weeks,” Prandelli said on Monday. “The most I can do is put him on the bench.” Fiorentina will thus likely deploy Alberto Gilardino as a lone striker, with Mario Santana, ordinarily a winger, switched to a more central position. Fiorentina lost at the weekend to Parma, 3-2, in a breathless, end-to-end match in which Gilardino scored twice. Prandelli admitted after the match that perhaps his squad had been thinking ahead to the match against Lyons. “They’re only human,” he said. They are sixth in Serie A at present, 11 points behind José Mourinho’s Inter Milan. “I’m not concerned with what Lyons do, I’m assuming they’re coming here to win,” Prandelli said. “I know they did not play well at the weekend, but that means nothing. How many times have you seen a team underperform on Saturday and be devastating on Tuesday?” Liverpool will be hoping that the performance against Grenoble was just a blip as far as Lyons are concerned. Otherwise, Fiorentina’s visit to Anfield next month will be meaningless. Kings of Lyons Hugo Lloris The 22-year-old has established himself as France’s No 1 and one of the very best goalkeepers on the continent. He may be France’s greatest goalkeeper since Joël Bats (and, yes, that includes Fabien Barthez). Cris The Brazilian central defender knows all the tricks of the trade and his battle with Alberto Gilardino will be central to events. Both men are well acquainted with the “dark arts”. Jean Makoun Fiorentina can get physical in midfield, and the Cameroon holding midfield player will need to provide plenty of cover for a makeshift defence. Adrian Mutu’s absence is a plus, but Fiorentina have no shortage of tricky dribblers who love to cut inside and run at people. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle6929021.ece

The Guardian Tuesday 24 November 2009 Liverpool's Ryan Babel heads for January exit from Anfield • Dutch international will review situation in January • 'If there's no improvement then I want to be somewhere else' Liverpool winger Ryan Babel has threatened to leave Anfield in the January transfer window unless he is given more chances in the first team by Rafael Benítez. The 22-year-old Dutch international has started just five games for Liverpool in all competitions this season, and is missing from tonight's Champions League trip to Debrecen with an ankle injury sustained in Saturday's 2-2 draw with Manchester City. Babel has now revealed that he has agreed with Benítez to review his situation in January and if there is no improvement between now and then he will seek to leave. "I have tried to talk to the manager but it isn't of any use," Babel said. "I couldn't really do anything with the feedback Benítez gave me. We have agreed to look at my situation in the winter. If there's no improvement then, I have to be honest, I want to be somewhere else. I don't play a lot so I can't be happy and I can't cheer out loud. Sometimes I wonder how long I can sustain it but I will fight for my position - what else can I do?" Despite the absence of Fernando Torres through injury for much of the season, Babel has completed just one full game, and that came away to Arsenal in the Carling Cup, and has seen French striker David Ngog move ahead of him in the pecking order for his preferred centre forward spot. After an impressive first season at Anfield, Babel missed the start of the 2008-09 season while playing for Holland at the Olympics and admits that he is unsure if the decision to travel to Beijing against the wishes of his manager is part of the reason for his lack of first team action. "I don't know if it has anything to do with my little trip to the Olympics. I know the manager wanted me to stay," he said. "I really don't believe [benítez] is trying to get back at me. Every time me or my agent have a chat with him he stresses I can't leave and he believes in me. We have to trust he is telling the truth. Saying it is different to showing it." http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/no...-babel-transfer

Daily Telegraph 23 Nov 2009 Fernando Torres: exclusive interview with Liverpool and Spain's 'El Nino' By Jim White The middle of October, and it is a tricky period for Liverpool Football Club. For the first time in more than 20 years they have lost four consecutive games. Worse, their next game is against the league champions, their much-loathed North West rivals Manchester United. It is no wonder, when it comes, that the match is a testy, bruising encounter, the tension thickening the air inside Liverpool’s Anfield stadium. So aggressively do both sides chase each other down, none of the players appears to have any room in which to manoeuvre; the moment they gain possession an opponent snaps in at their shins. But then, after 65 minutes of battling stalemate, something extraordinary happens. Fernando Torres, Liverpool’s Spanish centre forward, who has been absent through the previous calamitous run of defeats with a persistent groin injury, lurks on the halfway line between two United defenders, watching the ball intently, rocking on his toes, waiting for his moment. It comes as his team breaks out of defence. With the opposing defenders momentarily distracted following the path of the ball, he makes a sudden sprint sideways, creating himself a yard or two of space. His colleague Yossi Benayoun sees him go and slips an inviting pass into his path. Torres takes off in pursuit of the ball, United’s Rio Ferdinand a couple of inches behind him, trying to claw him back, laying an arm across his chest in an attempt to throw him off balance. But Torres is undaunted: brushing off Ferdinand, the world’s most expensive defender, as if he were an irritating fly, he bears down on the United goal. When he is 10 yards from it, with a swoosh of his right boot, he smacks a shot so powerfully past Edwin van der Sar that the United goalkeeper barely has time to raise a hand before the ball thrashes into the back of the net. The whole incident lasts less than three seconds. But it changes everything. The home supporters, who had been nervy, many of them convinced over the previous week that their club was in terminal decline, explode in relief. As Torres runs to the stands in celebration, the front of his red shirt clasped in his teeth, the better to demonstrate his fealty to the badge on his chest, there might well have been complaints about the noise as far away as Wigan. Then, after a moment or two, the crowd gathers its feelings into one collective articulation. From somewhere in the heart of the Kop a chant begins, sung to the tune of The Animals Went in Two by Two: 'We bought the lad from sunny Spain. He gets the ball and scores again Fernando Torres, Liverpool’s number nine.’ And it doesn’t stop for 10 minutes. This is what Torres, who is regarded by many as the best striker in the world, does: he scores goals that mean something. With a hammer-blow shot, he restores belief, puts a stuttering enterprise back on track, reinvigorates the cause. In 66 appearances for Liverpool he has, at the time of writing, done it 47 times. And how his worshippers love him for it. Such is the power of his play, and such is his ability to make telling contributions, that Torres, a man whose fitness over the coming weeks is to become inextricably linked with his club’s fortunes, has legitimate claim to be the most influential footballer in the country. Certainly there is no one to touch him in hard commercial figures: more Liverpool tops with Torres 9 on the back are currently being sold than any other replica football shirt. There are not many football-mad boys in the country, it seems, who do not dream of one day growing up to be Fernando Torres. A couple of weeks before the game, Torres, 25, is participating in a photo shoot for his sponsor, Nike. He is wearing one of the company’s new AW77 sweatshirts and has the hood pulled up, covering his shock of blond hair. He stares at the camera, a concentrated, contemplative look on his face, as if he has retreated into his own personal space to prepare for challenges ahead. It is an intensity exacerbated by the huge black eye he sports, a trophy gained in a recent match when he headed the back of an opponent’s head instead of the ball (defenders in England, he says, appear to have much harder skulls than their Spanish counterparts). Yet there is something oddly contradictory about his stare. Shiner notwithstanding, this is not some old bruiser daring the lens to match his gaze. The player who strides across a football pitch with a rippling muscularity is no shaven-headed meat-head but rather he has the fresh-faced, freckled complexion of a Californian surfer boy. And when the camera stops clicking and he introduces himself, his smile is so disconcertingly wide and youthful, he really does look as if he is staring at you from the pages of an American high school yearbook. No wonder in Spain the man who scored the goal that won his nation the Euro 2008 trophy is known as el Niño: the Kid. "When I was a boy, I was really thin, small, long-haired," he says. "I always looked young. People thought, he can’t play football. I used that to my advantage. In the first season when I arrived here [in England], it is true that maybe 80 per cent of the players in the Premier League didn’t know me, so I could use the way I look. It was easier for me because they didn’t know what I can do. They think maybe they can bully me." They were soon disabused. On a football field, Torres is no shrinking violet. At 6ft 1in, he terrifies opponents with his speed and physicality. The Liverpool fans soon spotted he was a lot more than he seemed. Within days of his arrival the Torres song was echoing around Anfield’s Kop, the stand that had once rung to the praise of Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish and Robbie Fowler. "It is incredible," he says of the chant. "I can understand why the fans would sing [his colleague] Stevie Gerrard’s name, because he is from here. But now a player comes from another country and gets this? It’s amazing to get this. Each player has one place in the world where he is happy and as a result he plays well. My place is Anfield. Every game I can play there I feel good." Torres’s journey to Merseyside is one he never expected to make. "As a kid I never once dreamt of playing for Liverpool," he says. "I always live in the present. I never dream about what might happen. Why? It might not." Torres grew up in Fuenlabrada, a working-class suburb of Madrid. An early footballing memory is of being pressed into service to help his elder brother practise his goalkeeping. "He is eight years older than me so I couldn’t say no. At first it was difficult for me," Torres says, pausing a moment with a dry comic timing. "But I can beat him now." Playing with bigger children on the indoor courts of Fuenlabrada, Torres soon honed the physical side of his game. He found that he liked fighting his way through rival defences – it played to a competitive instinct so intense, he says, that he avoids doing anything at which he cannot display mastery. "Tennis, golf… why play if you cannot win? And I am useless at them, so I don’t play." His mastery of football was never in doubt, and at the age of 11 he was signed up for the youth team at Atlético Madrid, the club his family supported. By the time he was 17, he was playing for the first team. Atlético is a club that has long suffered in the shadow of its illustrious city rival, Real, and the presence of a world-class player in their midst was regarded by supporters as a sign of unusual providence. As he became Spain’s leading striker, they took Torres to their hearts, and when it became clear six years later that he was heading to Liverpool, there was close to revolution in the home stadium. "It was difficult to see the people trying to stop the transfer, but last year when Liverpool played Atlético both sets of supporters joined in singing my name, so I think now the fans of Atlético understand my decision. It was really difficult. But after seven seasons there I never played in Europe [in the Champions League, the world’s most prestigious club competition]. I knew I needed to find a solution. I would love to have been like Stevie, he was in the academy at Liverpool, he was a supporter of Liverpool and he won trophies with Liverpool. That wasn’t going to happen for me at Atlético, so I needed to move. It was difficult, but I think I made the right decision." Liverpool paid £23 million for his services, a fee which, when you consider that Joleon Lescott and Dimitar Berbatov have changed hands for far more, represents the bargain of the footballing century. Torres came to Liverpool, he says, because of the Spanish connection: the manager, Rafa Benitez, another Madrileño, spoke persuasively to him in his mother tongue. (Nine other squad players and six members of the backroom staff also spoke Spanish as a first language.) Which was just as well, as Torres didn’t speak any English at all. "Not a word," he says. "The first month, that was really difficult. When Jamie [Carragher, Liverpool’s vice captain, and another home-grown talisman] spoke to me I didn’t realise he was speaking English. Even now, when two Scouse people are talking between themselves it is difficult to follow. I know some Liverpool words, but this is not the right place to say them. People say to me sometimes, “You have a Scouse accent”, but when I go to a different place it may be strange for them, so I try to speak proper English. But I have a few words. “Deffo”, I like that." His English is rapidly improving. And his sharp eyes suggest he misses nothing. "My mother says to me, 'I see you in press conference yesterday speaking English, and you are very good.' That’s because she doesn’t speak English. I remember before I came to England watching Rafa Nadal or Fernando Alonso and thinking they were brilliant, but that was because I understand nothing. Now I can tell they speak like me: not very good." Despite the advances in his English – encouraged by the fact that Benitez insists that it should be the lingua franca of the Anfield dressing-room – he still finds occasional cause to retreat into Spanish. "Sometimes I speak it as a code,’ he says. 'If me and Albert [Riera, his team and international colleague] want to discuss a move on the pitch, we will speak in Spanish so the opposition fullback doesn’t understand us. It works for us because so far we have not come across an English fullback who speaks Spanish." Beyond the language, there are some things he misses about his homeland: the ham for one thing, which he has flown in from Madrid. But he says his wife – his childhood sweetheart, Olalla Dominguez, whom he has dated since they met when they were both 15 – has settled easily. Despite becoming a mother in July when she gave birth to their daughter, Nora, she is continuing to study for a degree in social education at Uned, the Spanish equivalent of the Open University. What he most likes about England is the sense of anonymity. It may sound surprising, knowing the enormous affection in which he is held in his adopted home, but Torres says he finds it much easier to avoid attention away from the pitch than he did in Madrid. Back home, he says, the intensity of scrutiny grows greater by the day as next year’s World Cup approaches. Spain are the favourites to win. "If I can touch the cup it will be the best moment for a footballer. After that you cannot do anything better," he says. "But there is high expectation for us, and that is not always the best for you, that pressure. I think you have one chance in your life to win the World Cup and maybe this is our chance. We have good players, playing well together, who have been together for three, four years. If we miss this chance, this may be it. The pressure is very big." In Liverpool, he believes, there is far less critical analysis, the press is more forgiving, the supporters less intrusive. "Scouse people are very respectful," he says. "If they see me walking my dogs in the park, they say, 'A’right Nando, lad.' And that is all. I like that." He likes it because the evidence would suggest he is not someone who courts publicity. For instance, when he and Olalla married last summer, they did so in a ceremony in a town hall in a Madrid suburb to which only two guests were invited. And neither of them was a photographer from Hello! magazine. Many footballers would regard that as a seriously wasted earning opportunity. "I try to keep my private life apart," he says. "I try to live as normal a life as possible, because I am normal. I was born in a working-class place in Spain, my father worked every day of his life and I don’t like to be a big-head, or go to parties or events, or be seen about. I don’t like people talking about me. I prefer no one talks about me. I prefer to be at home playing PlayStation and being calm." This is the extraordinary thing about Torres: he masks his genius beneath a carapace of total ordinariness. There is nothing exceptional about him off the pitch, he insists. For him, life is about football, family and an occasional five-hour session of Fifa 2010. But then a cynic might suggest that maybe he has no pressing financial need to put himself in the public gaze or to engage with the myriad commercial endorsements of the modern game, given that when he signed for Liverpool he was the highest-paid player in the country, pocketing a cheery £5m a year. So what does a young man spend all that money on? "I don’t like people when they are famous or rich changing their lifestyle, so I try to be the same person as I always was," he says. "I don’t like to buy flash cars or flash clothes. For me, the best thing is to keep with the people you knew back when you were not famous. You meet so many people who try to get you to go to parties, or to photograph you in flash places, to distract you from your goals." When he leaves, after assiduously shaking hands with everyone from make-up lady to camera assistant, he heads off back home in an Audi 4x4, a car that, for the most coveted man in the most well-rewarded football league in the world, really does count as not very flash at all. And yet, in another contradiction at the heart of Torres, for a man who says he does not like to be the centre of attention, he appears to enjoy posing for the pictures, naturally knowing how to hold a camera’s gaze. "It is OK," he says of his role as a model. "But it is not my job. And I don’t do anything that stops me from my job: being a footballer. It’s not so hard for me now because I can control almost everything. I have experience and I know which is the route to follow. But when I was 17 and first in the [Atlético] team, then there was a different way." What was that? "Of people who want to know you, be your friend, take you to places that maybe it is best you don’t go. And if you follow that path maybe your career is over before you started. So I am really happy that I didn’t do that, but I could keep my friends and the important people around me. And now I’m 25 and playing for the best team in the world." He makes it sound as if he has been fully absorbed into the Liverpool way. "Yes, when I go back to Spain I look the wrong way in traffic. I had a problem with a taxi in Madrid because I looked right not left, and I nearly got hit. And I start driving on the left instead of on the right." Does this suggest he is here to stay? "Who knows," he smiles. "But for the next four years, yeah. Deffo." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/...ns-El-Nino.html

Daily Telegraph 24 Nov 2009 Liverpool's Yossi Benayoun says placenta cure was 'from a woman' not horse By Rory Smith Further fears have been raised over the controversial treatment received by several Premier League players from a Serbian physiotherapist after Liverpool’s Yossi Benayoun said he understood she used human, rather than horse, placenta fluid to improve recovery times from muscle injuries. Benayoun visited Marijana Kovacevic’s clinic last week, along with team-mates Glen Johnson, Albert Riera and Fabio Aurelio, as well as Chelsea’s Frank Lampard and Arsenal’s Robin van Persie, to receive the treatment which is highly thought of in eastern Europe. The Israeli international insisted he had “no worries” over the methods used in her placenta massage – which is thought to cut recovery times by as much as half – adding: “There were no animal parts used and no injections. "The doctor has treated a lot of players and seems to be held in very high regard. She explained everything to me beforehand and told me she would be using fluid from a placenta that had come from a woman. “Nothing went into the muscle itself. It was just a case of massaging the liquid on to the skin around the affected area. It meant I was able to play again and help the team at an important time within a fortnight. "I never envisaged being on the pitch again so soon, and it shows what can be done with this treatment.” Despite Benayoun’s endorsement, sources at Liverpool insisted on Monday night that the placenta used was equine, rather than human. It has emerged that Serbia’s health authorities are investigating Kovacevic’s licences to perform the treatment. It is also believed that the country’s tax authorities are seeking to speak to her over how her company is licensed. Police and tax inspectors both attempted to make contact with Kovacevic at her Belgrade clinic over the weekend but failed. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/...-not-horse.html

From Rafa's pre-match press conference yesterday An Italian reporter wanted to know if summer signing Alberto Aquilani would feature in Hungary. The gaffer said: "Aquilani is in the squad so he can play. It depends. The team has some players in his position now - Gerrard coming back and the two midfielders (Lucas and Mascherano) doing well, but he'll have his chances. "We want him as soon as possible but we have to manage with the squad." http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N...091123-2032.htm

From the official site..... Rafa Benitez is confident both Glen Johnson and Daniel Agger can play key roles for Liverpool in Debrecen despite injury concerns over the weekend. Johnson was set to play against Man City on Saturday until tests on the morning of the game revealed he was not 100 per cent. Agger did start but departed on a stretcher following a clash of heads which left him needing five stitches. Both are in the 18-man squad for Tuesday's Group E clash, and Benitez told his pre-match press conference: "If we decided to bring them here it's because we think they can play. We will train (on Monday night) and then we'll see. "You know that for us it's important now to have players coming back from injury. You talk sometimes about players being available but not ready, but at least if they are training we have more options." Another player present and correct on the plane to Hungary was Steven Gerrard following a groin problem. He played his first full 90 minutes since October 4 on Saturday and Benitez is hopeful any injury troubles are now behind the England man. "He was tired the other day but it was a difficult game," said the boss. "When you are more or less three weeks without training with the team, to play 90 minutes is not easy. He was a little bit tired but I think he will be okay for Tuesday." An Italian reporter wanted to know if summer signing Alberto Aquilani would feature in Hungary. The gaffer said: "Aquilani is in the squad so he can play. It depends. The team has some players in his position now - Gerrard coming back and the two midfielders (Lucas and Mascherano) doing well, but he'll have his chances. "We want him as soon as possible but we have to manage with the squad." http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N...091123-2032.htm

That comment shows just how little he knows

Spurs' recently released financials say they received £17.5m for Keane from us, but don't say how much they paid for him when they re-signed him http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/uploads/as...sults_nov09.pdf (p6)

Don't know, but the Daily Post had a story with them in this morning as well http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverp...92534-25229504/

From today's Echo "Liverpool have rubbished suggestions they are preparing a bid to bring Ruud van Nistelrooy to Anfield on loan in January. The former Manchester United forward has found starts hard to come by at Real Madrid this season and wants a move ahead of the World Cup but he won’t be signing for Liverpool." http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-f...252-25229328/2/

You're right, we don't know what the Echo's comment is based on - I should have said the first time the press have stated it (so clearly/as fact)

The Liverpool Echo today says "the £17million re-couped on Robbie Keane was used to service the club’s debt", which, while most of us have made that assumption, I think is the first time the media have confirmed it http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-f...252-25231050/2/